29 April 2007

from Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas)

Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen, in their Donkey Street room that is bedroom, parlour, kitchen, and scullery, sit down to last night's supper of onions boiled in their overcoats and broth of spuds and baconrind and leeks and bones.

MRS CHERRY OWEN
See that smudge on the wall by the picture of Auntie Blossom? That's where you threw the sago. [Cherry Owen laughs with delight.] You only missed me by an inch.

CHERRY OWEN
I always miss Auntie Blossom too.

MRS CHERRY OWEN
Remember last night? In you reeled, my boy, as drunk as a deacon with a big wet bucket and a fish-frail full of stout and you looked at me and you said, 'God has come home!', you said, and then over the bucket you went, sprawling and bawling, and the floor was all flagons and eels.

CHERRY OWEN
Was I wounded?

MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you took off your trousers and you said, 'Does anybody want a fight?' Oh, you old baboon.

CHERRY OWEN
Give us a kiss.

MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you sang 'Aberystwyth', tenor and bass.

CHERRY OWEN
I always sing 'Aberystwyth'.

MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you did a little dance on the table.

CHERRY OWEN
I did?

MRS CHERRY OWEN
Drop dead!

CHERRY OWEN
And then what did I do?

MRS CHERRY OWEN
Then you cried like a baby and said you were a poor drunk orphan with nowhere to go but the grave.

CHERRY OWEN
And what did I do next, my dear?

MRS CHERRY OWEN
Then you danced on the table all over again and said you were King Solomon Owen and I was your Mrs Sheba.

CHERRY OWEN [Softly]
And then?

MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then I got you into bed and you breathed all night like a brewery.

[Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen laugh delightedly together.]

13 April 2007

from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, chapter 14, Recipe for Wonka-Vite (Roald Dahl)

RECIPE FOR MAKING WONKA-VITE

Take a block of finest chocolate weighing one ton (or twenty sackfuls of broken chocolate, whichever is the easier). Place chocolate in very large cauldron and melt over red-hot furnace. When melted, lower the heat slightly so as not to burn the chocolate, but keep it boiling. Now add the following, in precisely the order given, stirring well all the time and allowing each item to dissolve before adding the next:

THE HOOF OF A MANTICORE
THE TRUNK (AND THE SUITCASE) OF AN ELEPHANT
THE YOLKS OF THREE EGGS FROM A WHIFFLE-BIRD
A WART FROM A WART-HOG
THE HORN OF A COW (IT MUST BE A LOUD HORN)
THE FRONT TAIL OF A COCKATRICE
SIX OUNCES OF SPRUNGE FROM A YOUNG SLIMESCRAPER
TWO HAIRS (AND ONE RABBIT) FROM THE HEAD OF A HIPPOCAMPUS
THE BEAK OF A RED-BREASTED WILBATROSS
A CORN FROM THE TOE OF A UNICORN
THE FOUR TENTACLES OF A QUADROPUS
THE HIP (AND THE PO AND THE POT) OF A HIPPOPOTAMUS
THE SNOUT OF A PROGHOPPER
A MOLE FROM A MOLE
THE HIDE (AND THE SEEK) OF A SPOTTED WHANGDOODLE
THE WHITES OF TWELVE EGGS FROM A TREE-SQUEAK
THE THREE FEET OF A SNOZZWANGER (IF YOU CAN'T GET THREE FEET, ONE YARD WILL DO)
THE SQUARE-ROOT OF A SOUTH AMERICAN ABACUS
THE FANGS OF A VIPER (IT MUST BE A VINDSCREEN VIPER)
THE CHEST (AND THE DRAWERS) OF A WILD GROUT

When all the above are thoroughly dissolved, boil for a further twenty-seven days but do not stir. At the end of this time, all liquid will have evaporated and there will be left in the bottom of the cauldron only a hard brown lump about the size of a football. Break this open with a hammer and in the very centre of it you will find a small round pill. This pill is WONKA-VITE.

01 April 2007

Home Thoughts from Abroad (Robert Browning)

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!